Despite stroke, developer pushes for strip club

Tuesday

Apr 9, 2013 at 12:01 AM

A New Jersey developer will continue his quest to build a Middle Smithfield Township strip club despite a stroke that has delayed hearings in a lawsuit seeking to overturn township approval for the project.

DAVID PIERCE

A New Jersey developer will continue his quest to build a Middle Smithfield Township strip club despite a stroke that has delayed hearings in a lawsuit seeking to overturn township approval for the project.

Daniel Russo had the stroke last November after his HOTTPA corporation sought to intervene in a lawsuit by 15 residents challenging the township's 2011 procedural approval for the conditional use application.

Conferences among the three parties in the case with Monroe County Judge Arthur Zulick have been postponed while Russo recovers.

Residents have charged that township supervisors illegally approved the strip club, which is proposed for the Werry's Motel property near Route 209 of then-Supervisor Bob Spano Sr. The residents have cited nine grounds for overturning the 2011 procedural approval, including charging that Spano, while supervisor, voted illegally to approve the club despite a conflict of interest. Spano contends he was allowed by law to vote, after citing his own conflict, to break a tie.

Spano and then-Supervisors Chairman Scott Schaller, who also voted to approve the club, have since been replaced by a township board that no longer supports the project. The township filed a motion last fall asking to present "additional evidence" that its 2011 approval violated the state Municipalities Planning Code.

The township says Spano and Schaller voted to appoint Donald Karpowich as a hearing officer and to accept Karpowich's decision on the proposal as final, if HOTTPA agreed. They contend HOTTPA, through Russo's attorney, Joseph Wiesmeth, agreed to the condition, so Karpowich's recommendation to reject the application should have been final.

The township says Spano failed to honor a subpoena by residents to testify at the township hearing, that Spano and HOTTPA failed to produce the sales agreement for the property and that HOTTPA wasn't a legally registered corporation when the application was filed.

The residents also filed a similar motion stating that HOTTPA wasn't incorporated until two months after the HOTTPA township application. The residents say HOTTPA and Russo have no legal standing to be a party in defending the lawsuit against the township's approval.

The residents attorney, Don Miles, is confident his clients will prevail.